Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Every step of the way he ran for Rosa
SPORTS marketing professional Stuart Rayner came up with the idea while jogging. He would do something to honour his cousin who fell to her death from a balcony at her 21st birthday party at the Kimberley Hotel in central Cape Town four years ago.
And so “Run for Rosa” was born in memory of Rosa Carlyle-Mitchell.
Rayner spent this week pounding the tarmac between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town, running metres short of a marathon each day, with one rest day, to raise funds for an underprivileged child to attend King’s School in Nottingham Road.
Generations of their family have been involved in King’s School, which started in 1922.
“I love education,” Rayner said, shortly after running the Wilderness to Mossel Bay leg of his multi-marathon mission.
“I thought of the link – Rosa, myself and King’s.”
He added that when he consulted the family, Rosa’s father Dominic suggested the run should be for an education cause.
Rosa, from Kloof and a product of St Mary’s DSG, was a drama student at the University of Cape Town at the time of her death.
While out on his thinking jog, Rayner connected a few dots: “Plettenberg Bay to Cape Town is 420km and a marathon is 42.2km.
“Ten marathons would almost cover that,” he thought.
“I could start on my birthday, July 16, and end on Rosa’s – July 28.” And that’s what he’s doing. His running odyssey, through the spectacular Garden Route and taking in the damage from the recent devastating fires, started in bucketing rain.
His knees were playing up but he pressed on. “It was tough but I kept focused on the goal, thinking of the reason I was doing it,” said Rayner, who is originally from Durban and attended Hilton College but now works in Johannesburg.
He said he would like to keep on doing such runs every year – for various causes.
This year he has run the Comrades Marathon, the Two Oceans, the Cape Peninsula Marathon and the Nelson Mandela Marathon.
For further information, visit www.facebook.com/RJCMRUN/